This month, our teachers are bringing *Lindy Focus* back to Charlottesville! We had an epic turnout at Focus this year, and we all learned a lot. Here’s a run-down of this months classes:

1/4 – Jim McGuire: Lead/follow mechanics with a new partner connection. We’ll be playing with 4, 6 and 8-count rhythms.
1/11 – Ariel Kahrl: Innovating Jazz Variations 1, how to change basic footwork and rhythm patterns to add musicality to your solo dancing!
1/18 – Ariel Kahrl: Innovating Jazz Variations 2, some charleston variations (and a sequence!) using the same principles as the week 1. You should know the basic charleston for this one.
1/21 – Katie Dillon – TBA

We’ve decided that these lessons will be a la carte! If you’ve already paid for the lesson series at 7:45, great, you’re in! If you want to just take this lessons series one week at a time, great, you can do that! It will be $5 per lesson, which will also get you into the dance. Email instructors@swingcville.org with questions.

This month, we are having a grab bag lesson series! Our instructors are going to be teaching lessons with a different theme (of their choice) every week. This give us a great opportunity to cover some topics we might not get to in our regular lesson series. We will run this month-long series like all other series – you have to come to all of them!

Here are the description of the classses:

Week 1: Drills & Frills – Brian Paljug
Description: How do we practice our partner dancing when we don’t have a partner? In this one-shot lesson, Brian P. will introduce a number of drills and exercises from top dance teachers to improve your dancing fundamentals: pulse, posture, footwork, agility, endurance, momentum, and other buzzwords! This is an ALL LEVELS class in the best sense — the only prerequisite is basic footwork (lindy & charleston), but EVERYONE will be challenged!
Prereqs: Must know 8-count and charleston footwork

Week 2: Partner connection – Jim McGuire
In week 2 we’re going to spend a lesson improving the flow of our dancing. This should allow for a more graceful and relaxed dance, even at higher tempos. We’ll be paying special attention to the follow’s role in the partnership and looking at how to improve flow by working on direction, momentum and movement through a simple progression of moves.
Prereqs: Participants will need to know how to swing out to participate in the class.

Week 3: The Structure of Swing (Music) – Brian Richards
What is swing music? How do we understand what goes in to the music we are listening to? Join us as we explore the different types of music that make up “swing” and explore how the structure and style of the music can influence the dance!
Prereqs: None

Week 4: Musicality – Stephen Johnson and Katie Dillon
In the musicality class with Stephen and Katie will explore useful footwork and timing variations. Exercises will familiarize students with moving in and out of traditional footwork patterns. This lesson builds off of Brian’s preceding musicality class.

Starting in the month of August SwingCville will no longer be having lessons at the Front Porch, we are moving to the Municipal Arts Center on 5th Street! Make sure to remind your friends to come to the MAC next week (8/3/16)!!

Thanks to all of you who came out for our solo jazz crash course last night! We got through a lot of material, and I had some requests to make a list of all the moves we learned. Here are the names of the moves: